The Iron King
by Rebel-of-Spades
Summary: Before Stannis was a King, he was a boy. This is his story.
1. Chapter 1

The tempest that swept across the sea and over Storm's End had been particularly savage. Neither Robert nor Stannis could remember one so fierce, although Maester Cressen assured them that there had been many that could rival it in ferocity, and a few that had been worse.

Storm's End lived up to its reputation, however, and although it had been buffeted by powerful winds and savage waves, the castle stood as strong and impervious as it ever had on the edge of the bay. The three day storm hadn't left the rest of the land in as good a shape. Mighty trees had been uprooted in the forest, and wood and shoreline alike were strewn with different sorts of debris.

Stannis had woken early, as the sun had just started to rise. He wanted to see what kind of havoc the storm had brought to his father's land. His brother Robert had surprised him by being awake as well. Robert hardly ever woke before him, and was usually sullen and moody if his sleep was disturbed. Today was different, however and Robert seemed more willing than ever to get out of the keep.

Stannis wasn't entirely surprised about that. Three days of being cooped up inside Storm's End had made Robert restless. There were only so many of the girls that Robert could flirt with before he grew bored and wanted to hunt or practice fighting. Stannis had seen him practice in the training yard enough to know that it was hunting he yearned for now.

Robert grabbed his bow and quiver, along with his favorite dagger and a sword. Stannis joined him with his own bow and quiver, though he wasn't nearly as good as his brother with a bow. The sword seemed a bit like overkill to him, but he wasn't going to say anything. If Robert wanted to carry all that around, let him.

The two boys slipped out of the gates, sneaking past the guards. They weren't supposed to go outside the keep without a proper escort, but neither of them wanted to be bothered with the extra annoyance. Stannis knew if they were found out, they would be scolded and punished…but his curiosity outweighed his caution. Plus, there was no stopping Robert once he had made up his mind, and if Robert got into trouble, at least he would have Stannis for backup.

Stannis fully expected Robert to be this excited, from the wide grin on his face. What he didn't expect was for Robert to turn to the shoreline instead of the forest. Robert didn't care much for the sea, as Stannis did. He'd rather go into the forest to spend his time trying to track down something he could shoot with an arrow or gouge with a sword.

"Come on, hurry up!" Robert called back to Stannis, impatience coloring his cheeks and making him irritable. Stannis gritted his teeth and picked up his pace as best he could to match his older brother's stride. Once down to the edge of the sea he saw the reason for Robert's excitement, though they were half buried in the sand.

Two bodies of unfortunate sailors had washed ashore sometime during the storm. As the two Baratheon boys drew closer, the stench of the dead flesh permeated the sea air and Stannis had to cover his nose in revulsion. He stopped at that point, but Robert walked right up to them. Once close enough he too covered his nose, but then laughed.

"Boy do they stink! I never thought dead people would smell so bad," Robert mused as he looked back at Stannis.

"Did you think they'd smell of roses?" Stannis replied irritably. He didn't particularly want to stare at dead bodies…but then again he didn't get to see too many of them and he was still a boy of only nine. Curiosity got the better of him and he moved closer to the bodies, despite the smell.

They weren't much to look at, in all honesty. Bloated and pale they hardly looked human anymore. Something looked like it had started eating one of the dead men, a sea creature of some sort. It had gone for the choicest part of the body, the eyes. Stannis couldn't decide if the sightless stare of the man who still had his eyes was worse than the dead, hollow holes of the other.

His attention returned to Robert when he started poking the eyeless man with a piece of driftwood. The skin puckered and then split. Robert laughed and Stannis frowned again.

"Let the dead rest Robert," he growled. The dead wouldn't mind, he was certain, but it seemed disrespectful to their memory regardless. Stannis had a feeling their father would disapprove…but then again Robert wouldn't have done such a thing if their father had been around.

"Seven hells Stannis, you're as stuffy as Maester Cressen! Come on, have a poke yourself!" Robert laughed and tossed the stick at Stannis. Stannis ducked the piece of wood and scowled.

"Fine then, let's go into the forest. There's gotta be some fresh game tracks because of the storm! I bet we could even find a stag or two! Wouldn't father be proud?" Robert laughed again, and then walked past Stannis, leaving the bodies. His curiosity had been satiated on the matter of dead sailors and he was on to other things.

"Shouldn't we tell someone about the bodies?" Stannis asked as he followed Robert towards the edge of the forest, casting one last look over his shoulder at the corpses.

"And lose our best chance at the hunt?" Robert scowled at him, as if he was the stupidest person alive. Stannis sighed and followed his oldest brother. He knew when to argue with Robert, and when to give up. His brother was insufferable sometimes. The bodies would still be there a few hours from now. He would inform someone when they returned to the keep. He would be punished for sneaking out without an escort, but it seemed only right to let someone know regardless…and it might abate his guilt a little.

Stannis followed Robert into the forest where the smell of the storm, salt and sap hung heavy in the air. He marveled at how many trees had been torn to pieces by the storm. Everywhere he looked branches were torn, snapped, and bare of leaves. The weakest trees had been uprooted and had fallen. Most ended up leaning against other trees in the vicinity, but a few had crashed to the earth, leaving deep divots where they had fallen.

The going was slow and tedious. Several times he and Robert had to scale one of the larger, fallen trees to get to the other side. Trying to be quiet was almost impossible with the amount of branches and twigs that littered the ground before them. The leaves and debris from the storm covered the earth, and the mud that Robert was relying on to find the tracks of animals. It didn't take long for him to get frustrated and start cursing the gods for the storm. Stannis didn't mind so much. He was learning to respect the power that the weather held over the land…and he doubted the gods had much, if anything, to do with the storm that had ravaged the land.

"Hush!" Robert hissed suddenly and Stannis stopped short, as not to run into his brother. He slowly peered around Robert, but saw nothing of interest. With a small scowl he almost opened his mouth to ask what Robert had stopped them for, when this time he heard the noise that Robert had stopped for.

Something was moving in the bushes ahead. Robert drew his dagger slowly, while Stannis fumbled a little with his own bow. He nocked an arrow, and kept the arrow pointing at the forest floor. Stannis didn't live by Roberts 'shoot first, ask questions later' policy.

Both brothers crept slowly up to the bush, but Robert saw what it was first, and laughed suddenly and loud enough that Stannis started in surprise.

"It's just a goshawk," Robert waved his hand, as if this was nothing. Stannis moved around his brother and peered into the bush where his brother had spotted the bird. His brows knit together as he spied the creature, and then returned the bow to his shoulder and the arrow to the quiver.

"It's wounded," he noticed. A tree had fallen on the other side of the bush, and one of the branches had crushed the wing of the goshawk. It lay trapped beneath the tree, half in the bushes, and hopelessly stuck. Stannis could see the feathers on the chest of the bird rise and fall rapidly as the wide, golden eye regarded him with terror. Black and yellow, the colors of his sigil.

"The wing's been snapped. It'll never fly again," Robert stated as he moved closer to the bird with his dagger. Stannis saw that he meant to kill the hawk with his blade and moved before he had even fully made up his mind. He plowed into Robert, taking him by surprise and knocking both of them to the forest floor. Robert cursed at him as they hit the ground and pushed him away.

"Are you a fool Stannis? It's just a crippled bird!" his face was red with outrage…although Stannis did not know if his brother was angrier at being pushed over by a younger sibling, or that he didn't realize it was coming.

"Leave it be! It might yet fly!" Stannis cried, just as angry as his brother was. What right did Robert have to kill the bird? "It might be good for hawking, once it's healed!" he protested as Robert brushed the sticks and dirt off of his clothes with a scowl, searching the ground for the dagger that had gone flying when Stannis had tackled him.

"Seven hells Stannis," Robert started, but something in Stannis's face stopped him from scolding his brother further. It might have been the set of his jaw, or the furrow of his brow, or maybe just the sheer determination that radiated from his whole stance. For once, Robert Baratheon didn't push his brother any further.

"Fine, let's get the damned thing back to the keep," he muttered sourly, offering his brother a hand to get him out of the mud. Stannis got to his feet, defiantly ignoring his brothers hand, which didn't do anything to improve Roberts mood.

In a huff, the oldest Baratheon boy knelt down and attempted to untangle the wounded hawk from the branches. Talons flashed and suddenly Robert was bleeding from a long, but shallow gash in his arm. He cursed and sputtered and glared at Stannis, as if it were his fault that the hawk had reacted so.

"If you want it so much, you can bloody well take it back yourself!" Robert stormed off, back towards the castle, holding his injured arm and taking what little pride he had left with him.

Stannis looked at the goshawk before him, still entangled and frightened…and for once he felt a small smile creep easily onto his face.

"That wasn't very kind. He was trying to help," he told the hawk, feeling slightly silly for talking to an animal that did not understand him…but Robert wasn't here to judge him, or laugh at him and that made him feel a little better. "Although he did deserve it for trying to kill you," Stannis admitted a moment later, the smile growing a bit larger.

He unattached his cloak from his back and knelt before the hawk. Stannis was infinitely more careful then his brother was, and managed to wrap the injured bird in his cloak before it could get its talons into him as well. When he lifted it from the ground, however, its head darted forward and it sunk its sharp beak into the soft webbing of his hand between the thumb and first finger of his left hand.

The smile fled from his face and he hissed in pain, but he did not curse or sputter like Robert, nor did he jerk back from the pain. He managed to keep still, knowing that if he moved too quickly, he might injure the bird worse.

"That hurts," he told the hawk through gritted teeth as he frowned and stared into the large, golden eyes. Neither boy nor bird moved for a long time, and finally the hawk released his hand. He quickly wrapped the bird to his chest as gently as he could, and pulled a bit of the cloak over its head. Covering the eyes calmed other birds of prey, and it worked with this one too. Stannis started back home, walking slowly as not to jostle the goshawk in his arms.

"You're going to fly again, I know it," Stannis whispered so softly that he barely heard his own voice.

He could feel the steady heartbeat of the bird through his jerkin, and his mouth twitched upward a little. This was going to be his hawk, and once it healed, he bet it would be one of the best hawks they had. His hawk might even beat Robert's favorite…and he might even see pride in his father's eyes that was so often only reserved for Robert; pride that this time was meant for his second son.

"Proudwing…that's a good name for you," he decided. As if in acknowledgement of its name, the hawk turned its head toward his voice. Stannis allowed himself to smile for the second time that day.


	2. Chapter 2

"Come on, it's not that far," Stannis encouraged the she-hawk that was stubbornly refusing to move from the perch she had taken on the wooden chair. His hand was sweating beneath the heavy hawking gauntlet, but he wasn't going to remove it until Proudwing learned to trust him. She eyed him and he encouraged her again, dangling the fresh venison from the glove, letting her know that it was hers, if she'd only take it.

_She's still so wild, after all this time._ Stannis thought to himself as he regarded her as she ruffled her tail feathers and then looked away from him. It had taken two months for her wing to fully heal. Maester Cressen had assured him that the wing would heal, for it had broken clean, but there was no promise that she would ever fly again. Stannis had just looked at his maester until the man showed him how to mend the wing. He wasn't going to be discouraged from trying just because the odds were not in his favor.

After the initial learning period, Stannis had taken to being the main caretaker of Proudwing. His uncle Harbert offered some help in the beginning, although he seemed to disapprove of the injured goshawk.

"There's naught harder then re-teaching a bird to fly, nephew," he had warned Stannis.

"I can do it," Stannis assured him with a determined look, and the man knew better then to argue. Baratheons were notoriously stubborn when they made up their minds.

Stannis knew that his uncle was the most knowledgeable knight in Storm's End about the art of falconry, but he disliked the man. Ser Harbert was impatient with anything that didn't have wings, but he was a decent teacher if Stannis didn't ask too many questions. He was shown the proper way to feed and care for the bird, as well as what he needed to do to re-teach her how to take to the skies.

It wasn't too difficult picking up how to care for the bird, but it did take a deeper patience and understanding then most boys of nine could muster. His brother was two and ten, but he had less patience then his sibling. Robert had checked on his progress only twice, both times growing bored and telling Stannis he'd do better with one of the other birds, if he was to truly take to hawking.

"Just because he's been hawking more times than me, doesn't mean he's right," Stannis had protested to Proudwing after Robert had left to find more interesting things to do. Her only reply had been to stretch her wings out to the side, as if to take flight, but then return to the resting position…much to his disappointment.

Stannis snapped out of his thoughts when Proudwing turned her gaze back to his glove. She seemed to consider the morsel in his fingers for a moment. Her head cocked to one side, almost comically. He stood as still as stone, certain she was about to fly to his wrist…until she lifted her tail and pooped on the floor. He sighed.

"I know you can do it…you're just being stubborn," Stannis accused the bird. He had seen her fly several times, although it hadn't been far, or for long. Usually just to get from one perch to another, as long as it wasn't too far away. His uncle had told him the correct way to tame her, and he had left no illusions to the difficulty, but Stannis found himself starting to doubt that he'd ever be able to get her to come to him willingly.

"My father will be home in less than a month. I would have liked to take you with us, but if you don't fly, I cannot show him how well you've healed," Stannis explained in a soft voice to the hawk as he moved towards her, bringing his hand, and the meat a little closer and a bit lower than he had before. Proudwing regarded him again, her interest renewed from the motion of his arm. He could see her eyes focused on the meat in his hand.

_Come on, you can do it. It's not so far, you can fly that short distance, surely._ Stannis clenched his jaw tight, and willed the bird to his wrist. He slowly moved his fingers, watching how alert she suddenly became now that he was moving.

_It's the movement she notices, not the sight or smell of the meat…but how it moves._ He suddenly understood what had gotten her attention and as he kept up the small movements of his fingers he was rewarded as she suddenly took off from her perch and glided easily to his wrist. Her head darted into his fist and she snatched the venison from his fingers. The smile that broke out on his face was as unexpected as her sudden decision to cooperate.

"See, I knew you could fly! I knew that you would come to me," he could feel the pride swell in his chest as he lightly stroked the feathers on her breast. Proudwing had not used beak or talon on him since the first day as he carried her back to the keep, and unlike most of the other hawks and falcons that his uncle tended, she tolerated his touch, as long as he kept it gentle and short.

"Uncle says that I can teach you the lure, now that you've come to my fist. He says that's the hardest part, and you did it. I knew you would," he grinned in triumph. Maybe he would be in time to teach her to hunt, and to take her with him when his father arrived home.

Proudwing regarded him closely as he spoke to her, yellow eyes bright and fierce. He wanted to try again, and he might have if he didn't know that she was tired. Pushing her too much would only hurt the progress they had made. With a deft hand he pulled the falcon hood off of his belt and covered her head. She stilled as he did so, and slowly relaxed as she got used to it.

He took her over to her perch, which was in the least drafty part of his room, and she obediently stepped onto the perch when she felt it rest against the top of her legs. Stannis attached her jesses to the perch, as his uncle had showed him and then he gave her another piece of meat to praise her for being well behaved.

There was a knock on the door and the grin fell from his face. He made sure that her jesses were on right, and then took off the gauntlet and opened the door. Maester Cressen peered into the room. He spotted the goshawk on the perch and smiled, somehow knowing that Stannis had succeeded.

"You've made progress," Cressen exclaimed and Stannis nodded.

"She finally took the meat from my hand," Stannis couldn't help the pride that crept into his voice and Maester Cressen laughed.

"I had my doubts at first, but you've done well with her."

"Thank you maester, but we better go. She will need her rest," Stannis motioned for Cressen to leave, and then followed his mentor out into the hallway, shutting the door behind him. It was time for dinner, which is why Cressen had come. Any of his father's men could have fetched him for dinner, but Stannis knew that the maester was genuinely interested in his progress with Proudwing, and was checking in on them.

Stannis did not know if he was pleased, or annoyed by that. There was a part of him that wanted no one else to meddle in his doings with the bird, but it was nice to know that not everyone was as indifferent as Robert, or as doubtful as his uncle.

"My father should be home soon, right?" Stannis asked, wondering if he had correctly calculated the time his father had been away.

"A fortnight from now, if the Seven keep the storms at bay long enough to sail home," Cressen assured him with a smile. "He will be pleased to see that you've taken to falconry so diligently."

Stannis wasn't so certain, but he allowed himself that hope. Their father didn't take them out often, maybe once or twice a month, and Stannis had never been able to have his own hawk. That would change now. Proudwing had left a long scar on Robert's arm from when he had been too rough with her, and although he had been stitched up, he wouldn't go near the bird. That was just the way that Stannis wanted it. So few things in life were his and his alone.


End file.
